ABOUT

Let’s go to Java, Indonesia a bunch of times and record hundreds of tracks of traditional music, and then remix, reimagine and mash those recordings with our fucking amazing friends in Athens, Ga. and beyond. After a few albums, let’s keep going, making some more jams that are part abstract noise pop and part dance gaze. Then, let’s make a set of all of it and have an ethno futuristic dance gaze party and pretend we’ll never die.

More info below

In the later 2000’s, Suny Lyons and I made multiple trips to the island of Java, Indonesia, to record the music that I (and many before me) had loved for years. We captured everything from children’s songs and solo string players to full 30-member gamelan orchestras found all over the island. We recorded everywhere from darkly lit nightclubs in bustling cities to bamboo huts way, way way off the grid – tracking everyone, from the country’s beloved stars to virtually unknown street musicians, and everyone in between.

Finally, settling back in Athens, Georgia, and after a year editing the final cuts for our Indonesian music series, we began building songs with loops, sounds, and scales from the original field recordings – collaborating with fucking amazing musicians in Athens on songs that ranged from remixes to reworks and reimaginings, in order to give an Athens-style call out to those half a world away in java.

In a wonderful collision of styles and sounds, Athens musicians brought their own styles and signatures to these songs, along with their playfulness, singular experimentation, and arresting sincerity — in a way only Athens can. A seemingly endless list of musicians on both sides of the planet have lent a voice, strum, beat, or mix to create this rare collection of songs — songs that ultimately rely on what music has always been and always will be: a colliding and calling out. yo. hello. thanks for listening. ~ Kai